The Flower and the Buzzle
by HarleyMischeif
Summary: In the days that have passed since the news reached me of the death of Sherlock Holmes - things have been difficult. It seems as if I have spent the last 72 hours systematically trying to relive every moment we passed in each others company. In a way I suppose I am hoping that writing it down will be cathartic, though I was resigned long ago to the fact that his memory would never
1. Thief

In the days that have passed since the news reached me of the death of Sherlock Holmes - things have been difficult. It seems as if I have spent the last 72 hours systematically trying to relive every moment we passed in each others company. In a way I suppose I am hoping that writing it down will be cathartic, though I was resigned long ago to the fact that his memory would never be completely lost to me.

I suppose the very act of starting a story at the beginning is unoriginal but I'd much rather start here, unfortunately I myself am not much prepared for the unhappy ending which awaits us.

I doubt it comes as any kind of surprise to you that both Sherlock and I first made our acquaintance at school, both term time boarders, both from wealthy enough families that we avoided the purgatory of having to share a room with a dorm mate.  
He was - even then - more than a little odd. Two years of lower forms without so much as exchanging a single word to each other. We were fifteen by the time we finally shared a class in which we were situated beside one another in the higher set for Biological Chemistry.

If it were ever possible to take ownership of a subject, then Sherlock possessed chemistry, formulae and reactions were imprinted upon him like birthmarks and I must admit to having congratulated myself on my luck for having scored the seat beside him. All the good it did me, or at least, not at the beginning.

In the very same way that Sherlock Holmes' blood sang of catalysts and equations, my particular love and talent was focused wholly on the consistent certainty of numbers. Mathematics.

If I had been a romantic I probably would have known then that we would compliment one another so perfectly.  
As it was, we sat together for almost a full term without speaking a single word to each other that wasn't relevant to the class subject matter and even then any verbal exchange was brief and to the point. To me, he was an oddity and to him, I was just another face.

In the end it all came down to the very plain fact that I was failing chemistry and that, at the time, my morals were rather loose.

The day I stole Sherlock Holmes' chemistry notes from his bag would change us both irrevocably for the rest of our lives and yet the action itself seems so pathetic.

Of course he knew it was me, as it turned out he'd been mentally placing bets with himself as to when I would finally cave and ask for help- apparently my penchant for theft was a 'pleasant surprise'. Or so he informed me that evening when he appeared outside my room, arms crossed over his chest, dark curls sticking out every which way.

Neither of us had really grown into ourselves yet. I was thin, awkward and my thick black hair was untameable. Sherlock - well, he lacked much of the grace he adopted so well in the years that followed.

He stepped right past me and dropped down onto my desk chair without a single word. I simply shut the door with a small click and lent back against it, watching him carefully. The conversation that followed went something like this:

'My chemistry book'

I nod - there isn't really much I can offer at that.

'You have it.'

Another nod - no point denying it.

'How did I not see?'

I finally respond, perplexed by the question, a little entranced by the way his lips moved when he spoke. He notices, of course.

'You weren't looking?'

'Im always looking. I see everything.'

'Well. I guess you missed something.'

'Obviously.'

There's something of a drawn out pause then, he spins back and forth on the chair, picking up bits and pieces from the desk top. Papers, the rubiks cube next to my Oxford English. His slender fingers drift over my folio copy of Frankenstein - odd, how that particular fact sticks in my memory.

I just watch him until he speaks again, his eyes fixed on something I can't see up on one of my shelves.

'I could help you- obviously you're worried about your parents reaction if you should fail a core subject, and with your father being a chemist himself...'

I don't ask him how he knows, it doesn't seem important and besides - I'd heard enough rumours.

'Why would you help me? You don't even know me. We've been sitting together for an entire term and I doubt you even know my name.'

'Victor Trevor.'

I wouldn't realise until much later in our acquaintance just how much hearing him say my name for the first time had affected me. It was one of the few things I expect he never deduced and that I never had the opportunity to express.

I blink slowly at him and I have no doubt that he was considering exactly how much of an idiot I was. This was, after all, Sherlock Holmes. Stand offish, unapproachable, intimidatingly brilliant and painfully dismissive. This was Sherlock Holmes offering to help me pass chemistry. I wonder now If it wasn't more than that. If it was in fact, his was of reaching out to someone. Of finally risking a part of himself in the pursuit of friendship.

I say yes, not quite as eloquently as I would have liked but the whole experience had left me a little confused. I vaguely remember having the urge to offer him tea, which would have been ridiculous given the complete lack of tea making essentials. Instead, I go to the end of my unmade bed and fish his note book out of my bag, taking a few steps and placing it on my desk for him to take.

'It wouldn't have done you much good anyway.'

I incline my head, not even needing to ask why - he's already started telling me.  
He flips the first page.

'The majority of this would be illegible to someone so...'

He pauses and I'm certain that he's consciously trying to search for a less offensive word.

'It's fine.' I tell him. 'I know I'm shit.'

He smiles. Oh he smiles. It's like a secret, one he always kept quite well hidden and I answer it with a small one of my own.

'Do you think you could bring yourself to dumb it down for a novice like me?'

There's a pause and I get the feeling that he's struggling with something. He opens his mouth and closes it again, looking determined down at the square graph paper strewn across my desk. When he next speaks it's a mumble and I miss every word but one - 'ridiculous'.

I scratch a hand through my hair. I don't need to ask him to say it again because he already knows I haven't got a clue. He seems to take a moment to steel himself before he tries again, each word enunciated perfectly, clear and utterly coherent, yet no less surprising.

'I find myself, despite my far superior intellect, having to...'

He pauses.

'I need help with algebra.'

I very nearly laugh but thankfully I think better of it. My response is quiet, friendly.

'I can do that.'

'Its not that I can't do it, I just haven't the time patience to waste my...'

I shake my head and interrupt.

'I can help you.'

He nods and clenches one pale fist before standing, shoving his chemistry book under his arm.

'Classes finish at four tomorrow, be in the library at five. I won't wait around for you.'

A few moments later I open my mouth to say goodbye but he's already pushed past me and shut the door behind him. I spend a good few minutes pondering the encounter and then an entire sleepless night considering what might happen during the next one.


	2. Blush

Fifteen was very easy as an age, of course at the time I couldn't think of anything worse. I was almost certain that being fifteen was tantamount to a hideous curse. Too young to drive, to drink...At least another year of school, two of college and three at university if I was ever to make anything of myself. Not that it worked out that way in the end.

I'm getting ahead of myself, I tend to do that, skip ahead, tell a story the way I want it to go rather than the way it really came to pass.

This is different though, when I look back on that year now I realise it was full of exploration, new experiences and a kind of youthful happiness that I would never feel again. It was a good year, that very first one. We were young and in the midst of falling in love. The truth is, both of us were a little terrified by the whole thing.

After that first proper meeting we saw each other increasingly often. There were stages - brief explanations and silent study, both bent over our own work. Then came the lengthier exchanges, the first sounds of shared laughter, acknowledgement in the hallway, the dining area.

Four weeks after our first study session I found him waiting for me outside of my French grammar class. I never needed to ask him how he knew my entire time table.

Without really noticing we had fallen into an easy, comfortable friendship. He was drawn to me as I was to him, a planetary rotation of sorts. Needless to say, I passed chemistry with fly colours. There lies the next memory that really clutches to me. Six weeks after the note book theft, results day for the midterm exams. I was sick with nerves and he hadn't said much at all. I imagine he knew I wouldn't listen and therefore refrained from saying anything. More often than not the act of conversation was tedious for him and so I let him be.

He was handed his envelope first for no other reason that H comes before T in the alphabet, not that it mattered. In the end his troubles with mathematics lay more with his own laziness than any lack of understanding. As expected he tore open the envelope, gave the enclosed piece of paper one perfunctory glance before crumpling it, face blank and unaffected. It didn't help in the slightest that he looked far more anxious when I was handed mine. I suppose he may have been worried that the standard of his tutoring as below par but by this point I had come to hope that perhaps his visible concern was due to his growing affection for me.

In the end he was the one to open it, pull out the single sheet of paper and nod slowly- which didn't do all that much to calm me down. I'm certain he didn't leave me waiting by design. It was then and always would be his nature. Sherlock was a selfish being, it wasn't conscious nor was it malicious, which is why I accepted it so easily. After all, not once did he mention a single one of my faults.

In the end I just took the results from him, looked down at the ink and allowed myself a quiet moment of relief. A pass- and a good one. Enough to keep my parents happy at the very least.

'I suppose we should celebrate...'

It strikes me as odd that the suggestion has come from him. Most of our class mates will be sneaking off site to drink low alcohol hooch and pretend they are drunk because teenagers in the mid ninties liked to do that sort of thing.

Sherlock and I were a little different in this case as in many others, which is why I had no idea what he could have planned. We spent a lot of our time together reading, a few times I had settled myself on his bed as he carried out any number of weird experiments at his desk. Occasionally we would hang half out of his window, passing a single cigarette between us. We didn't do it because we wanted to break the rules. He didn't particularly care about that either way. We did it because we wanted those moments which offered us freedom, independence- something that often evaded us due to the confines of boarding school.

That day we went back to his room. I felt relieved, elated and then without warning everything was magnified by the briefest touch, the tips of his fingers grazing my knuckles as we walked. The motion repeated with every step or so, along with the natural rhythm of out bodies. I wanted to ask him if it was accidental, but somehow I think we both already knew the answer to that.

The spell was somewhat broken when he stepped away to unlock his door, both of us stepping inside together and throwing it bags to the floor. Conversation was light and I struggle to remember it now- a discussion concerning the results of his latest experiment, or whatever new samples he had retrieved from the river bank. At the time I would have been fascinated, I always was when it came to him.

Where usually I would sit myself cross legged on his bed and he in some impossible position upon his desk chair, in this instance he shuffled up the bed, back against the head board and with a single pat of his hand motioned for me to join him. I did, without question, positioning myself between his body and the wall. Our legs touching, socked feet meeting at the end of the bed. I admit to being a little confused as to whether this was the celebration, not that the close proximity would be more than enough.

'I knew you would pass.'

I snort and look over at him, thinking back to the badly hidden display of anxiety that crossed his face before my results wet revealed. I don't argue, I look ahead and let my hand fell from my thigh to rest between us. It rests over his and even now I'm not sure if I'd meant to do it all along. Instead of pulling away I hesitate a moment before speaking.

'Is this..?'

'Yes. Fine. It's fine.'

He turns his hand slowly under mine, our fingers interlocking loosely - my heart stops, I'm certain it does.

We don't speak for a long time, a silence lays lightly over the room. I note the strange acidic smell drifting over from an ominous looking container on his desk. I don't ask.

At some point his fingers start to move, a vague, playful experiment of sorts. I follow, my eyes fixed on the way we play carefully with one another, stroking each gap between his digits, the bumps of his knuckles.

There wasn't all that much sensual about it, but as a fifteen year old boy I can honestly say I had never experienced something so sexual. I ached for him - mentally, physically. This wasn't some faceless fantasy. Compared to the sexual experiences we would share in the years to come the whole incident seems rather insignificant. Yet for me, in that moment and even as I think back on it now, it was truly delicious.

He ran the very tip of his index finger over the sensitive skin of my palm, tracing the etched lines right down to the blue veins at my wrist - veins which would come to mean much more to us nothin. Few years but in that moment meant nothing but the hammer beat of my racing heart,

I heard his breath catch so I raised my head just enough to catch him watching the point at which his fingers touched to my skin. The milky complexion of his cheeks dusted pink with heat and i imagine mine were much the same. His eyes were dark, curious as always but burning with a new kind of fire.

I doubt either of us really knew what any of it meant. Though I was rather well acquainted with my right hand by that point, I would later discover that physical pleasure was as good as alien to him. It just turned into another thing to love...that look of pure shock and confusion as the intensity of his...

But I'm jumping ahead if myself again.

I think that I would have been quite content if all I ever got to do with Sherlock Holmes was to hold his hand but that didn't stop my teenage mind from thinking about what might come next.

We didn't sleep that night, I stayed right there, his hand in mine, eventually moving so both of us lay flat on top of his covers. The darkness came and went with the turn of our conversation and the comfort of it silences. My eyes closed softly against the first sign of morning light and when he spoke his words were lazy and heavy with tiredness.

'I could do this. We could do this. In fact, I'd like to do this, with you, often.'


	3. Specimen

Things changed gradually after that. We spent more time together than we did apart. One particular Thursday, in a quiet, almost embarrassed whisper he extended me an invitation to spend the summer with him at his family home. My parents were away in Europe for the majority of the holidays and I had no wish to spend the summer entertaining myself in rural Norfolk. I accepted rather bashfully, looking down at my feet as if I were misbehaving.

To think, there would soon be a time where embarrassment and uncertainty was nothing but a distant memory between us.

As for the progression of our relationship, in the month or so that followed the end of our midterm exams we never strayed much from the comfort and ease of interlocking fingers. It had taken a while but by march of that year he would start to take my hand in his out of habit, whether alone in the confines of one of our bedrooms or under the ever judgmental gaze of our classmates. If they were set against it, I certainly didn't hear a word of it - I never had much time for ignorance.

Sometimes I would wait for him to finish in the evening, already half buried under his covers with the work I needed to do that evening - sometimes if I had enough of a head start we would finish at the same time (assuming he was bothering to do any of his work that evening).

Sherlock's scent tended to get everywhere. I spent a long time trying to analyse and replicate it with little success. Just as he did, his scent evolved. The last in my memory is of antiseptic, stale breath and greasy hair contained within the broken remnants of our life and the new, unwelcome stench of a hospital.

But that, that is along way from when I laid myself upon his bed, face hidden in his pillow, breathing him in. I can't remember if I was embarrassed or not when I was caught. I know I must have smiled and watched him laugh, eyes following each movement when he shed his the layer of his school blazer and let it crumple in a messy pile to the floor. There was something different in the way he looked down at me then, edging towards the bed with a glint of something predatory within his stormy eyes. I couldn't decide whether I was more nervous or excited. He stopped right at the end of the bed, standing over me, our gazes fixed.

"You're early."

I note, well aware that he hates it when I state the obvious. Though this time, instead of chiding me, he simply inclines his head.

"I've not much patience for German Vocabulary - besides, I knew I had something far more interesting waiting for me here..."

His momentary confidence seems to falter after that, cheeks darkening, his eyes averted to the side. I laugh quietly.

"I hope you're referring to me and not the strange dead insects squashed between those slides on your desk."

Though he continues to look away I can see the edge of a smirk playing at his lips and I lean up on my elbows to get a better look at him.

"As a scientist I hate to admit that said specimens had little to do with my return..."

"I promise to keep your secret."

He turns to me finally with one eyebrow raised, humming quietly.

"Make sure you do."

I roll my eyes and flop back down onto the bed, letting myself wonder what would have happened had Sherlock maintained his determination a little longer.

He rolls up the sleeves of his shirt to just above his elbows and sits on the side of the bed, still apparently fighting with himself over what should be his next move. I watch him for a short while, the back of my hand breaching the gap between us until the back of my hand is pressed over his shirt at the small of his back, itching to slip under the material and meet with the warmth hidden beneath the cotton. Instead I play the fabric between my fingers and he looks to the side, down towards where my head is rested back upon his pillows. His lips are ever so slightly parted, one of his own hands reaching between us to untuck the shirt from the band of his trousers. I touch him then, that hidden piece of skin, massaging the planes of it with the very tips of my fingers, stroking the width of his lover back until he practically purrs which in turn gives me shivers.

"Lay with me?"

My words come as a whisper, as if speaking too loudly would frighten him away. The touch breaks when he moves, laying on his side to face me one hand hovering across my waist for a moment until his nerves allow him to rest it there, the length of him pressed up against my side. I look up at him, lifting a hand to his face and worrying a few stray curls between my fingers.

"Are you my boyfriend?"

I'm surprised and fail to answer straight away, the cogs in my brain grinding against one another. I'd thought about it, of course. Boyfriends. Two guys who happen to hold hands- but it was far more than that. I hadn't been plagued much by the idea of sexuality and I doubt it registered at all with him which is why my hesitation on the subject was less to do with panic and more the sheer shock and joy of it.

"I'd like that. Yeah...Yeah."

He tries not to smile too widely at my answer, giving a small nod and burying his face away against my shoulder and the quilt. I laugh at his reaction and make so we are both turned towards one another, his face still partially hidden. My hand rests at his waist, pulling our slender bodies close, our foreheads touching when he finally looks towards me.

Everything rind to a halt when our eyes meet again. Thinking about it now, writing it down - well it all sounds a little cliche. I suppose it was, most first kisses are.

His hand appears at my shoulder and I'm sure it was trembling, sliding along the curve to rest at the side of my throat. I can feel the warmth of our breath int he small space between us, a mix of smoke, warm tea and sweet marmalade. That fist kiss is - messy, awkward. Our faces don;t quite know what to do and my lips are pressed completely off centre. It comes in a series of slow, lingering kisses, our lips locking again and again in some strange display of fading innocence. My whole goddamn body is singing.

The initial uncertainty has faded, his hand becoming a little more persistent, thumb stroking small circles just under my jaw as I dip beneath the hem of his shirt with my fingers. I finally feel the sharp edge of one hips bone against my hand and the glorious pressure between us as I squeeze against the skin.

In the first instant that we pull apart enough to look at one another again I see his hooded eyes and blush stained cheeks, the way his lips are red and swollen, his tongue dipping out to taste whatever remains of me upon them.

"Sherlock..."

He says nothing, just hums quietly as if I've interrupted hum by daring to speak. I don't try again just yet, instead I push my feet between his two resting ankles to entangle us even more thoroughly, drawing the tip of my nose a long his jaw and across on soft, warmed cheek.

I remember the feeling of never wanting to stop, of desperately wanting to have my hands on his body for the rest of my life and to never move again. I want to tell him but every time I make to open my mouth he stops me with a kiss and it's as if he's discovered something fascinating, unable to bring himself to stop. It doesn't matter to me, I would happily lay there for hours and be his specimen, gifted the precious entirety of his attention and affection. What i wouldn't give to feel even the slightest glimmer of that now.


End file.
